Friday, November 04, 2005

The service for the victims of the July 7th London bombings was a few days ago and I watched most of it on TV. The blatantly Christian service in which representatives of other faiths (but not none) were invited to light candles etc really annoyed me. Seems like once you're dead, as with Robin Cook, the church is there in seconds to start claiming you as one of theirs. Inevitably greiving relatives, traumatised and eager to cling to a little hope are not stopping them. The thing is though that we now know the Iraq invasion kicked off because "God" spoke to George Bush. And it's obvious that our participation in the illegal invasion has led to us becoming a target for so-called terrorism.

So here for the record, in public, are my requests (orders!) on what happens if I die (and this includes if I'm captured personally by Osama Bin Laden and held as a hostage for six years first, no excuses for changing them to suit your purposes anybody...)

1) Body if retrieved to be cremated in secular service.

2) Figures to be invited to the funeral and memorial service (assuming I die in such a conspicuous way that people want to come): George Galloway, representatives of Liberal Democrats and stop-the-war movement, Mark Thomas and Rob Newman, Germaine Greer and representatives of the National Secular Society.

3) That's it. No Tony Blair, no-one from the Labour party or Tories, no royals.

4) No biblical readings, no hymns (not even Jerusalem), no crosses.

5) No flowers, no expensive stuff. Donations to third world development charities (even if I've died of a disease which has a big charity prescence in the UK). Not including Christian Aid or anyone who's ever handed out bibles instead of food.

2 comments:

It's depressing to see you voice indignation that the memorial service given at St Paul's was a Christian service. I wonder what other kind of service you expect to be given at a Church of England cathedral. My dictionary shows 'blatant' to mean "Totally or offensively conspicuous". I marvel at your capacity to find offense in the most benign actions. Showing a little more religious tolerance benfits us all in these difficult times.

I think St Paul's was a totally inappropriate place to hold a memorial service. I thought the service which claimed to be a multi-faith service was totally and offensively conspicuous of it's Christian basis.

How about a little tolerance of my atheist views?

Religion got us into this situation in the first place. I don't see many atheist suicide bombers.

Furthermore religion isn't true, it's a lie fed to populations to make them easier to manage. It's nothing more than a weapon of oppression!